Originally Posted by Doug Fattic

I'm a framebuilder that prefers the ride of a .7/.4/.7 thin wall tubing bike frame with a 1" top tube. Full stop. I made my 1st very light frame out of Ishiwata 015 tubing in the late 70's. It was a weight weenie exercise. 015 tubing is even lighter with .6/.3/.6 tubing wall thickness. The whole bike weighed under 16 pounds. What surprised me about the ride of that bike was that it was not whippy or loose/goosy or seemed to flex too much when I rode it. It just rode nicely. I loaned it on one of our training rides to a Cat 2 that rode with us. He was bigger and stronger than me and went on an all out sprint up a fairly steep hill and came back and said the bike flexed too much for him. But I wasn't bigger or stronger - just a decent rider and it certainly worked very well for me.

Let's remember that Jan originally went on a hunt to figure out why he liked the ride of his French bikes (Herse or Singer or both I forget) better than his Bob Jackson. Eventually (as I recall) he came to the conclusion the difference he felt was how thin walled the tubing of the French bikes were compared to the English. And then he has tried to explain why they rode differently and I think this is where all the trouble lies. It is possible people mix up their attitudes with his definition of planing, the way he writes, how they relate to his business. In fact few people have ever ridden a 7/4/7 frame with a 1" top tube. Production companies don't make them because they are harder to manufacturer and the liability is too great. Anything that they make and it breaks can be big trouble. That is why production steel frames were always overbuilt. The exception would be the Raleigh SBDU 753 frames. Of course 753 was made with heavier walls than 7/4/7 so it is possible some of those couldn't be used as an example.

My own frames i've built for myself have 7/4/7 walls with a 1" top tube. I vastly prefer their ride over those with heavier or bigger diameter walls. Even those i've built myself. There is no debate at all in my mind as to what works best for me. And those that have never ridden a light walled bike with a 1" top tube aren't going to persuade me otherwise.